Ardan Control-Tech

Video conferencing

Video conferencing

What is a video conference system?

A video conference system is an IP-based media solution (calls over the Internet or the organization intra-net) enabling audio-video connection between sites. The ability to perform video conferences (VC-Video Conference) first became possible a few years ago at a relatively low level of quality and has improved significantly over the years, both in video and audio quality as well as in ease of use. Until a short time ago (several years), communication lines based on ISDN Technology were used for video conferences to place a call on standard telephone lines. Over the years VC capabilities improved and became sophisticated when calls used IP communication – and not only within an organization itself but also over the Internet. Today VC communication using ISDN lines are very rare, and will probably disappear in the near future.

Communication using Video Conferencing allows the user a wide variety of tasks: From training employees located overseas or in remote sites, development team calls between remote sites, quick consultations between colleagues who prefer to see gestures and facial expressions in order to understand each other better, calls with remote customers or suppliers, or in fact – almost any action that not so long ago obligated us to travel to meet face to face. Video conferencing bridges distances, saves travel costs, allows better use of employee and manager time, and creates a more natural working environment than telephones or emails.

It should be mentioned that when talking about video conferencing that the intention is standard video conferencing: agreed protocols or “language” used by the systems on both sides to “talk” between them. The protocols include information about the video and audio qualities to be delivered over the communication line (regardless of its type) as well as additional capabilities.

Video conferencing systems consist of end units and infrastructure systems:

End units – room systems , personal systems, PC, mobile and tablet systems, as well as infrastructure systems – MCU (Multipoint Control Units) to perform multipoint conferences for large numbers of participants, VC Gateways, VCS, recording systems, management systems, and software that enables interfacing with different systems such as Outlook, Lync and more.